It feels different

Communications Center General Discussion
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(TLDR at bottom)

So after Fountain fell, I had a pretty decent amount of assets sitting in 1DQ. Trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I decided to liquidate the excess. Our Esoteria campaign kicked off, and I decided it’s time to sell the super, and my caps so I can isk to have more fun burning things in Esoteria. I figured I’d just build new ones once the war was over. With an expected kiddo on the way, I knew my play time would be sporadic and inconsistent so chewing rocks and running sites to pay for the fit wouldn’t be too bad under the current mechanics at the time.

Fast forward to now. I’ve been setting goals and working towards long term projects. My first is working on replacing most of the ships I sold or lost during the war. I’m slowly chipping away, getting those small milestones. I’ve purchased a new niddy, a new fax, a new Rorq, but these ships feel different. All my old caps, including my super, were built by me. Using my Rorq and alt in a Hulk. Hanging out on comms with my corp mates as they grind towards their production goals. My new Hangar Queens were all purchased, almost exclusively from producing and selling PI and moon goo. If I lose a capital ship now, I just need to sell more PI, big whoop. I generate about 300mil a day of P4’s, I’ve got this setup pretty optimized for 3 accounts. When I lost one of my old niddys, or my last dread in FWST, there’s a time investment and memories attached to those ships, and I think that’s what really feels different. I don’t have that same emotional attachment towards what I own, because it’s way too complicated to build anything.

I remember watching my hangar fill up with ore, then minerals, then cap parts, making spreadsheets to track how many more minerals I need to collect. Grinding to get the isk for the fits, took time. The logistics to put these ships in the oven took teamwork. Hell it took me 6 months to get my Hel in the oven, but it was rewarding. The current system is just so tedious, skill intensive, and overly complicated, it really just isn’t fun. Am I really going to enjoy spending at least 6 months building a Niddy, as a fly all over the galaxy praying to RNG Jesus I find the right gas cloud?

As I get older and my play time isn’t what it used to be, maybe a couple hours each night to play after the little one goes to bed. I spend about half that time doing something PI related (CCPPLEASE make PI less time consuming, I rather be flying in space instead of looking at planets) and the other half of my time is spent chasing some filament nerds who yeet away as soon as they don’t like the odds or I’m doing some sort of PVE.

The game feels different…aspirational goals don’t seem achievable. I’m thankful for the friendships made from this game, I just wish CCP would understand for every major patch that’s happened over the past 2 years, I’ve lost corp mates who just don’t see the point in playing. My Corps discord currently has more people that used to play eve than do play eve. The most rewarding industrial related goal I’ve reached with my corp mates this year wasn’t even in this game, we built some rad stuff in Satisfactory together.

Taking the crown from the Rorqual was needed, I get it. We can’t turn back time and make things like they were before, but please make production of anything bigger than a battlecruiser fun again. I miss my friends, and it may already be too late for most of them to come back, but give us a devblog that makes us look forward to the future, give us a patch that doesn’t have more bugs than features, I want to talk good about you guys. I don’t want to start every conversation about this game with a disappointing sigh. Give us something to look forward to please.

TLDR: I’m big sad, I miss my friends. I used to build most of the ships I flew, and it was super rewarding. Big ship Industry is so tedious now I do 6 hours of PI week and just buy the ships and that’s not rewarding. I don’t know if 6 hours of PI a week is rewarding, but at least it’s profitable and an achievable goal. I’d like to have an update to look forward to and stop giving a disappointing sighs when I talk about this game.

3 Likes
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I was building my own carriers and dreads too, I feel it too.

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Perhaps you need to realise that a) big ships got hit with the nerf bat and made less easily accessible (and for good reason) and b) with limited RL time things like that they are now out of your reach. Also I don’t understand the “I do PI for 6 hours but hate it, I’d rather fly in space”, so why don’t you do that?

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There’s no doubt that the Game has changed - as it must.

But we change, too. What got me fired up (when I first played) in 2013, now occupies a relatively small corner of my game-world, and also of Real Life.

Having retired, I could now spend many hours playing EVE. I don’t, because I carefully cultivated other interests which also draw my attention. I’m content with that.

In short, it feels different because both the game and you have changed. It may feel like a mini-death, but reflection is often the precursor to change. I wish you the very best.

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I hear you and get that things have changed in a way that reduces your satisfaction from the game. As always, one approach is to try other things and see if other activities can replace some of that satisfaction.

I would point out that “building my own supers is very satisfying” is most likely a realistic ‘aspirational goal’ for maybe something like 5% or less of the player base. (Purely a guess, I’ve got nothing to base that number on other than 4+ decades of gaming experience.)

One design issue is that, if people can, reasonably, set out to solo build their own supers - then capitals and supers become commodity items. Which is exactly what happened in what some people call “The Age of Abundance” but what I call “CCP selling power creep because they ran out of good ideas for EVE and lost the skill to implement any good ideas they did have”. (It’s not quite as catchy, I know.)

So some specific fixes had to come in to fix that ‘lessening of the relative value of capitals’. The flip-side of that in game design is that they should be introducing other features that open up new doors and new goals. Or introducing playstyles that make better use of the assets we do have.

Change always leads to upheaval, and upheaval leads to some people quitting and others coming back or starting new. It remains to be seen whether CCP is revitalizing anything with their current (uncommunicated) long vision, or is simply driving a few more nails into the coffin.

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I do the PI because its consistent income regardless of other players or RNG. I’ve had too many explo runs that end up just being a waste of 2 hours. Combination of BRM and ESS makes ratting pretty silly. Not able to babysit an ESS for the 3 hours it’s set to. I mean I do spend alot of time in space, just would rather be spending my time doing other things besides PI in sov null.

I enjoy being in sov null, but it’s gotten the bat so many times that it’s hard to make decent income here. I didn’t set up shop here in so if I want to do anything worth my time I need to go to LS or HS to do.

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If aspirational goals were achievable, they would just be called goals.

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I, and CCP apparently, think your idea of “hard” and “decent” are unrealistic.

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Aspirational and unachievable or mind numbingly tedious are not synonyms

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This upheaval also feels different. When scarcity started or blackout happened, the mindset was more, lets ride this storm and let ccp be dumb. Now though, there are just noticeable less of my friends online, less people in general. Just looking at discord, I see people playing other MMOs.

I know I’ll probably end up letting a couple of my subs run out, and go back to playing on one character next year if ccp stays the course.

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hard or decent maybe not the best words to use. “its hard to find rewarding/satisfying content” may have been a better way to put. I don’t care about being rich, I want to have fun building, flying, and doing things

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No one said they were.

But if you can reach them, they arent aspirational.

There also isnt anything aspirational in a game where you can just buy your way to it.

But judging from your other replies it seems you may be a krab.

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Buy, CCP is really regretting letting players vertically integrate the entire production process, huh?

Maybe people need to realize that the ability to build an entire titan by yourself instead of as a group isn’t that great for the game’s environment, you know?

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I think we have different definitions of the word aspirational. Aspirational goals can still be achievable.

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Scalability has always been an issue with the game. I thought the issue was somewhat solved when ccp nerf what ores spawned in certain areas of space and greatly reduced the quantities that did.

I mean look at CCPs graph they posted in their Q&A. The rorq hasn’t been king in years.

My caps were built with my corp mates as a team. Using my barges getting boosts from my corpate with a rorq. Eventually I got a rorq and another barge alt. My corpmates would help me refine because he has better skills. We would have corp move ops to transport the minerals with our freighters. It was very teamed based.

We planned after the war to have mining fleets in lowsec and HS to get the ores we need to build caps again, it takes a significant amount of logistics to get back to our home region to build and will most definitely would require team work to achieve. Which is still required to do ontop of the rediculous amount of reactions and huffing.

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That sounds like reasonable intent to me.

Are you trying to argue in favor of lower difficulty?

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In a sense yes, but not because I want easy game play for the sake of easy mode, but because I want to have a rewarding time while I play.

Capital proliferation was such a huge issue and ccp took ages to respond, then took another 2 years to reach where we are now. It doesn’t feel like the solution to the issue was thought through at all.

Proliferation was such an issue for so long that even for the foreseeable future buying capitals will be tremendously easier to do than building. My napkin math put me at about a year maybe a bit more (if blessed by rng Jesus) of just exclusively gathering supplies to build another super. I don’t even want to think how long it would take for a titan. I’m getting close to 8 years playing this game and I’m finally ready skill wise(sp and irl knowledge) to fly a titan. I totally could spend a few months grinding and get that isk to buy one, but like the whole point of my rant, it’s not rewarding.

And I’m not exclusively an Indy player, I like shooting, explo, and doing stuff with my friends. The current process is really just an huge barrier to entry that just doesnt feel fun.

(Also, I know I’m mainly talking about caps, but alot of what I’m frustrated about also applies to faction ships)

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I think we do.

To me aspirational goals are things other people dangle in front of you that they tell you you should have, but youll never actually reach.

There isnt such a thing in EvE.

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